From The Electronic Intifada – Israel plans to forcibly displace 36,000 Palestinian Bedouins in the Naqab (Negev) region of southern Israel to make way for a military training area and weapons testing facility, according to Adalah, a legal advocacy group for Palestinians in Israel. That’s one quarter of all Palestinian Bedouins living in the Naqab, all citizens of Israel. The plan, which was announced late last month, “overtly discriminates against the Bedouin population, and considers them an obstacle that must be removed from the landscape in order to clear a path for Jewish settlement and ‘development,’” Adalah stated. Israel’s Authority for the Development and Settlement of the Bedouins intends to transfer Bedouins to “poverty-stricken, government-planned townships,” violating both Israeli and international laws. If implemented, Israel will sieze about 65,000 acres of land – an area about one and a half times the size of Washington, DC. One of the plan’s projects is to estab...

Almost one week after dozens of extremist Israeli settlers raided and occupied a Palestinian home in the southern occupied West Bank city of Hebron, an Israeli settler declared on Monday that he and his family will be officially moving into the home, despite an ongoing legal battle between the Palestinian homeowners and Israelis. The Israeli settler who made the declaration, according to Hebrew media, was Yossi Dagan, a leader of the Homesh First organization -- an umbrella organization of right-wing settler groups whose goal is to rebuild Homesh settlement, which was destroyed and evacuated by the Israeli government in 2005. Hebrew media reported on Monday that Dagan accused the Israeli government of “stalling” on legal procedures, and called on Israeli leaders to “stop this injustice” and to move the ownership of the home -- which belongs to the Palestinian Abu Rajab family -- to Dagan and the settlers of Hebron. Residents of the Abu Rajab house, located in the Old City of Hebron ...

After reports emerged Friday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised the United States government to stop marketing new settlement units for the rest of 2017, a representative from settlement watchdog Peace Now called the alleged promise “another spin of the Netanyahu government trying to fool the public.” Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post had reported that the alleged freeze was discovered when settlers from the illegal Beit El settlement in the central occupied West Bank discovered that plans for 300 new settler homes -- promised to the settlers by Netanyahu in exchange for a peaceful evacuation of the illegal Ulpana outpost -- were halted. Netanyahu then reportedly met with the settlement's regional council head Shai Alon and ensured him that the homes promised to the settlers would be excluded from the temporary settlement freeze, adding that the 300 settler homes would be advanced in September. more

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman approved plans for the construction of 2,500 housing units in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, Israeli media reported. According to The Times of Israel, the vast majority of the new housing will be built in the settlement blocs of Ariel, Etzion, and Maale Adumim -- the latter being the focus of a Knesset bill seeking to annex it to Israel. The Jerusalem Post, meanwhile, said that 100 of the units would be built in the settlement of Beit El, as part of a previous agreement to provide housing to settlers who were ousted by Israeli authorities from the illegal outpost of Migron in 2012. “We’re building, and will continue to build,” Netanyahu reportedly said after the announcement. Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted Lieberman as saying that "we are returning to life as normal in Judea and Samaria," using an Israeli term for the West Bank. more

According to reports from Israeli media, a vote on a bill seeking to annex the occupied West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim that was set to be voted on Sunday was postponed at the request of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, following pressure from the administration of US President Donald Trump. Israel's ultra-right Education Minister Naftali Bennett has been keen to introduce the bill, with its introduction having reportedly been delayed until Trump's inauguration, as the new American head of state has come out as a vocal supporter of illegal Israeli settlements. However, Israeli daily Haaretz reported Sunday morning that Netanyahu called Bennett on Friday and asked him to postpone the bill after Trump advisers said that “no unilateral steps should be taken by Israel” until a meeting is held between Netanyahu and Trump. more

From the Electronic Intifada – The UN Security Council has voted by 14-0 with one abstention – the United States – to condemn Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. The resolution passed on Friday demands that Israel “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and that it fully respect all of its legal obligations in this regard.” It is a clear declaration that Israel’s settlement activities are illegal, but as I explained in an analysis on Thursday, existing resolutions – that have been unenforced for decades – already do that. This resolution, like its predecessors, sets out no concrete consequences for Israel if it fails to comply. There are also key elements of the resolution – to do with the so-called two-state solution and the right of Palestinians to resist – that I argue actually erode Palestinian rights. But supporters of Palestinian rights will at least welcome the Security Council...

The Israeli Supreme Court rejected an appeal filed by residents of the occupied West Bank village of al-Nabi Elyas over Israel’s confiscation of 100 dunams of Palestinian land, Israeli radio reported on Thursday. According to the Arabic-language Voice of Israel station, the court ruled on Wednesday that residents of al-Nabi Elyas in the district of Qalqiliya could not prove ownership of land which had been seized to build a road. The court claimed that the road, whose construction is expected to begin in January, would benefit both Palestinians and Israeli settlers in the area. The ruling added that if Palestinians were able to prove ownership of the land after the confiscation, they were allowed to demand compensation. The decision from the Supreme Court comes as the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, approved a preliminary reading of a bill which would retroactively legalize settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank, which are currently deemed illegal under both Israeli and int...

The spokesperson for the European Union Friday strongly condemned Israel’s plans to construct 98 new housing units in occupied Palestinian territory in the northern West Bank for the establishment of a new Israeli settlement. The condemnation came two days following notably harsh criticisms by the United States over Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise. Last month, the Higher Planning Committee (HPC) of Israel’s Civil Administration approved for “depositing” -- the planning phase prior to final approval -- a plan for 98 housing units for a new settlement to be located east of the already established settlement of Shiloh, on lands of the Palestinian village of Jalud in the northern West Bank district of Nablus. It is part of a larger plan for 300 units yet to be promoted. Meanwhile in April, Palestinian residents of Jalud reported that Israeli authorities delivered notices alerting them that 5,000 dunams (1,250 acres) of private land were slated for confiscation. A new industrial ar...

NABLUS (Ma'an) -- Israeli settler bulldozers under the protection of Israeli army and intelligence forces uprooted hundreds of olive trees from Palestinian lands in the village of Iskaka in eastern Salfit on Wednesday morning. Local activist Khalid Maali told Ma’an that two bulldozers belonging to settlers from the illegal Israeli outpost of Nefih Hanania and the nearby Rachelim settlement razed 35 dunams (8.6 acres) of agricultural land planted with some 500 olive trees in the eastern al-Bayyada area of the village, near the outpost and settlement. Head of the Iskaka village council Abd al-Qader Abu Hakmeh told Ma’an that villagers were taken by surprise when the convoy stormed the village and uprooted the olive trees without giving prior notice, under the pretext that they were located on state lands confiscated by Israel. A spokesperson for Israel's Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), which is responsible for implementing the Israeli governme...

A group of Israelis have reportedly begun setting up an illegal settlement outpost in the southern occupied West Bank district of Hebron, locals told Ma’an on Sunday. Hebron-area local Abd al-Karim al-Zaatari told Ma’an that settlers brought caravans and tents in the area near the villages of Khallat al-Dabi and al-Buera, close to the settlement of Kharsina, earlier this month, not long after a Palestinian teenager stabbed and killed a 13-year-old Israeli girl in the illegal settlement of Kiryat Arba, before being killed himself by a security guard. Al-Zaatari added that the Israeli settlers installed a sign reading “we returned to our home” outside of the outpost. The new outpost may be in the same location as a previously illegal outpost which was evacuated by Israeli forces in 2012. Israel's Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the agency responsible for implementing Israeli policies in the occupied Palestinian territory, responded to a request f...

Nearly one year to the date that his mother, father, and 18-month-old brother were murdered when Jewish extremists firebombed their family home, six-year-old Ahmad Dawabsha was released from Israel’s Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer on Friday, according to Israeli media. The young boy was severely injured in the high-profile attack that took place in the town of Duma in the Nablus district in July 2015, and has undergone a series of complicated surgeries since. Dawabsha was released to the care of Hussein Dawabsha, his maternal grandfather, with whom he will live in Duma, according to Haaretz. The young boy will have to return to the hospital for weekly checkups, and is expected to undergo additional surgeries over the coming months, most of them plastic surgeries to help reconstruct parts of his body and face that were severely burned. Two Israeli suspects were indicted for murder for the incident in January, five months after suspects belonging to a Jewish terror organization se...

The Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned on Thursday the Israeli government’s decision to built hundreds of housing units in illegal settlements in occupied East Jerusalem. The ministry slammed Israel’s continuous building of settlements in occupied Palestinian territory -- in contravention of international law -- and obstruction of the peace process. The Egyptian government urged the Israeli government to “cancel the decision and put an end to the policy of escalation, which kills the hopes of Palestinians.” On Sunday, the Israeli government approved the construction of 140 homes in the settlement of Ramot in occupied East Jerusalem and 100 for the Har Homa settlement in southeastern Jerusalem. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman also approved plans to construct 560 new housing units for Jewish Israelis in the illegal settlement of Maale Adumim, as far-right lawmakers also announced their intentions to introduce legislation t...

A Palestinian teenager was killed on Thursday morning in an Israeli settlement in the southern occupied West Bank after carrying out an attack against a 13-year-old Israeli girl who later succumbed to her wounds, as one other Israeli was wounded in the case. An Israeli army spokesperson told Ma’an that a “terrorist infiltrated” the illegal Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba on the outskirts of the city of Hebron, where he attacked an Israeli teenage girl, who was later identified by the Israeli Prime Minister's office as 13-year-old Hallel Yafa Ariel, in her bedroom. The spokesperson said that the Palestinian was then shot and killed, and that "two civilians" had been wounded and evacuated to the hospital. She added that the Israeli army was looking into the case. The Palestinian Ministry of Health later identified the killed Palestinian as 17-year-old Muhammad Nasser Tarayra, from the village of Bani Naim. Shaare Zedek hospital spokeswoman Shoham Ruvio told Ma'an t...

Israeli forces early Saturday raided the village of Beit Amra in the municipality of Yatta and destroyed the family home of a 16-year-old Palestinian accused of stabbing and killing an Israeli settler in January, amid an ongoing Israeli blockade imposed in central Yatta. Popular resistance coordinator in the village Ratib Jbour told Ma’an that after a large number of Israeli forces at 2 a.m. raided Beit Amra west of Yatta in the southern occupied West Bank district of Hebron, Israeli bulldozers razed the two-storey house belonging to Mourad Badir Adais’s family to the ground. The building housed ten people. Israeli forces also raided several other homes and a medical lab in the village, and briefly detained 15-year-old Moataz Jamal Abu Arram, according to Jbour. The Palestinian liaison office in Hebron secured Moataz's release Saturday afternoon, and also negotiated with Israeli authorities to allow Tawjihi documents to enter Yatta so they could reach high school students who ...

A group of right-wing Israeli settlers broke into an uninhabited Palestinian house in the southern occupied West Bank city of Hebron on Tuesday and stole wooden furniture, presumably to be burned during bonfire celebrations for the Jewish holiday of Lag BaOmer. A spokesperson for Hebron-based activist group Youth Against Settlement, Issa Amro, told Ma’an that the houses belonged to the the Al-Sayyid Ahmad and Tahboub families, who have been banned from accessing their homes in Hebron’s Old City since Israeli forces sealed the area around al-Shuhada Street in 1994. The holiday of Lag BaOmer, which will take place on Wednesday evening, commemorates the death of second-century Jewish mystic Simeon bar Yochai, and is traditionally celebrated with bonfires It is not uncommon for young Israelis celebrating Lag BaOmer to steal wood from construction sites and other locations ahead of the holiday. Local Palestinian house and shop owners in Hebron’s Old City have been banned from acc...

Friday marked the 26th anniversary of the Oyoun Qara massacre, which left 19 Palestinians dead after an Israeli soldier gunned down a group of Palestinians working in Israel. At 6:15 am on May 20, 1990, 20 Palestinian workers from the Gaza Strip waited for their employers to pick them up from the Oyoun Qara (Rishon Lezion) bus stop, when a discharged Israeli soldier arrived and demanded that the workers show him their IDs. The soldier, Ami Popper, checked the workers' IDs, and after ensuring they were all Palestinian, ordered them to line up in three lines and kneel down, then opened fire on the workers with an M16, killing seven and badly injuring 10 others. Popper then drove his vehicle away from the scene. When Israeli police arrived they proceeded to severely beat the Palestinians who had survived the ordeal. Protests erupted across the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip following the killings, as the Israeli army imposed a siege on several districts in the Gaza Strip. Clas...

More than 2,000 right-wing Israelis, escorted by a large group of Israeli soldiers, stormed the Palestinian town of Kifl Haris in the central occupied West Bank to pray at a shrine late on Tuesday night. Witnesses told Ma’an the settlers first arrived in groups at midnight and performed prayers while dancing and shouting, disrupting the community throughout the night. They left the town at 7 am. The settlers also affixed posters with religious slogans in Hebrew on walls in several parts of the town. An Israeli army spokesperson said they were looking into reports. A number of tombs exist in Kifl Haris, which Palestinians in the area believe to be the graves of the prophet Dhul-Kifl, the Sufi saint Dhul-Nun, and another shrine built by 12-century sultan Saladin. more

Thousands of Palestinians across Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory marched Wednesday to commemorate the 40th Land Day, protesting decades of Israeli land grabs. "Palestinians are entitled to their land and they will give up not one inch," Hamas official Yehya Mousa said at a rally in Gaza City to remember the Palestinian protests against Israeli land seizures that were violently suppressed on March 30, 1976. Hundreds of Gazans marched from the city towards the Erez crossing in the coastal enclave's north, waving Palestinian flags and demanding the right of return of Palestinian refugees forced to leave their land when Israel was established in 1948. Senior Fatah leader Zakariyya al-Agha also addressed Gaza's rally, telling protesters: "The martyrs who fell on that day embodied national unity," in reference to the six unarmed Palestinians gunned down 40 years ago. "As the Palestinian people mark Land Day, they are still facing an (Israel...

Israel has backed down in a long-running and bitter diplomatic dispute with Brazil, withdrawing its nomination of a controversial settler leader as ambassador after Brasília refused to accept his credentials. The seven-month long impasse over the planned appointment of Dani Dayan, a former chairman of the the West Bank Yesha settler council, came to an end on Monday when Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, who is also the country’s foreign minister, announced he would be appointed consul general in New York instead. Rejection of a proposed ambassador is extremely rare and had drawn considerable attention to the Dayan case. According to Israel’s deputy foreign minister late last year, the Dayan case was the first instance in which a proposed Israeli diplomat had been rejected for his “ideological” views. The move comes despite repeated insistence by senior officials that they would ensure that Dayan – who lives in a settlement – would be allowed to take up his post in Bra...

Three Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli troops on Monday morning after they allegedly carried out two consecutive attacks near an illegal Israeli settlement in the southern occupied West Bank in which four Israeli soldiers were injured. An Israeli army spokesperson told Ma’an that Israeli forces shot and killed two Palestinians after they opened fire at Israelis waiting at a bus stop near the settlement of Kiryat Arba on the outskirts of Hebron. Witnesses said two Palestinians in a Peugeot 504 pick-up truck tried to shoot at Israelis at the bus station and that Israeli troops fired back at them, killing them immediately. Shortly afterwards, she added, a car ran into a military vehicle in a “ram attack,” and Israeli soldiers shot and killed the driver. The Israeli army said one soldier was wounded in the shooting attack, while two soldiers and an officer were wounded in the second altercation. She said they were evacuated to a hospital and were believed to be in moderate condit...